The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for treating subterranean formations.
Production of oil and gas from subterranean formations may be hindered by formation damage. Most damage occurs due to introduction of fluids and high pump rates that cause swelling and/or migrating in the formation. Formations are prone to water-sensitivity, which can cause damage through swelling, softening, dissolving, forming precipitates, sloughing and/or generating migrating fines. All of these can decrease production or induce wellbore damage.
In some formations, clays or fines may already be present or fines may be generated during formation treating activity. In some instances, the formation is stable causing no obstruction to the flow of hydrocarbons through the subterranean formation. However, when the formation is not stable, the minerals can swell and/or fines can migrate through the formation until they become lodged in pore throats, thereby decreasing the permeability of the formation. Methods for evaluating formation stabilization treatments typically rely on expensive instrumentation, time-consuming methods, and hard to obtain core materials; which are not feasible to run on a well-to well basis at a field lab locale. Moreover, many such methods may not accurately identify the damage mechanisms in a particular formation, and thus may provide insufficient information to identify the effective treatments to reduce that damage.
While embodiments of this disclosure have been depicted, such embodiments do not imply a limitation on the disclosure, and no such limitation should be inferred. The subject matter disclosed is capable of considerable modification, alteration, and equivalents in form and function, as will occur to those skilled in the pertinent art and having the benefit of this disclosure. The depicted and described embodiments of this disclosure are examples only, and not exhaustive of the scope of the disclosure.